From the category archives:

Transracial Families

Looking Back to Look Forward

January 14, 2011

Adolescence, the period of physical and psychological development that transitions humans from puberty into maturity, roughly the ages of eleven through nineteen, a word and time laden with emotional memories for many of us.
Often adolescence was the hallmark of being uncomfortable “in our skin” as hormones started to riot and our bodies and emotions began [...]

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Reflections: Ten Years

December 7, 2010

Note: I write this post with my “parent hat” on, instead of my “educator hat—” although that hat is always with me…
2010 has is only weeks away from being over. We move into a new decade, full of hope opportunity and promise. This year I again filled out a census for our family. In doing [...]

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Reluctant Relatives

October 12, 2010

Sometimes the whole family isn’t completely on-board with the decision to adopt, especially if the adoption is a transracial adoption—a child that differs ethnically or racially from the adopting parent(s). One such experience my husband and I had was with his dad.
My father-in-law was “concerned” when we shared that we were adopting a child from [...]

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Transracial Parenting: Helping Your Child with Their Racial Identity and Consciousness

September 30, 2010

If you have adopted transracially you have adopted across race, adopted a child who is a different race than you. The first step in helping your child is to understand that you cannot “share” your child’s culture or race.
What you can do is make sure your child has the connection to the communities from which [...]

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Loss: The Well of Grief

September 21, 2010

The basic trauma of every single adoption is loss. No matter how young a child is when they join their adoptive family, they have suffered loss—of their birth mother, birth history, and possibly birth father, birth siblings and culture. Loss brings about grief and for many, depending on the situation and child, other issues.
One of [...]

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Does Your Child Have a Teacher New to Adoption?

September 13, 2010

Inspired by my friend and collegue Jenny Kales, aka “The Nut-free Mom,” who wrote a wonderful post about having a teacher who has not dealt with allergies, I’ve written on how adoptive parents can approach teachers who have little or no exposure to adoption. Here’s what you can do:
Introduce yourself, preferably person-to-person. You can write a letter, [...]

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